The irrelevance of SAARC

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) has proved to be anything but that. Whilst the concept of a regional grouping of nations to their mutual benefit remains sound as it was in 1985 when Saarc was founded, it has never reached its full potential. It has a vast bureaucracy headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal, and links across the globe, including into the EU. No matter the good intent, prosperity and peace in the subcontinent since the Saarc foundation have been hobbled by a range of regional conflicts. Summit meetings of Saarc have from time to time provided opportunities for meetings of political leaders to meet on the margins but these have never catalysed anything beyond this. The 19^th summit was scheduled to be held in Pakistan but was called off as India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan all declined to attend.

The 2018 Saarc summit also now looks to be imperilled as the Indian prime minister has threatened to ‘sabotage’ it and possibly ‘pull away’ from the initiative, a comment he made while meeting his Nepali counterpart recently. The Indian foreign secretary chimed in saying “it was not possible to proceed with Saarc under present circumstances.” Cross-border terrorism was cited as the reason but it is the underlying and deep-rooted conflict between India and Pakistan that lies at the heart of the increasing irrelevance of Saarc.

The last summit was in Kathmandu in 2014, the following summit was cancelled and it now appears that the upcoming summit is dead in the water. There has to come a point, and this may be it, when the necessity for the continuation of Saarc has to be weighed against its cost and effectiveness. As matters stand India is never going to accept a Saarc meeting of which Pakistan will have, according to protocol, Pakistan as a chair. With Modi ensconced for the foreseeable future and Pakistan heading for a period of the politically neuter as it transitions from one government to another, perhaps it is time to draw a line under the Saarc project and stop throwing good money after bad.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2018.

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